Significant New Products for 2015

Here’s my take on some of the more interesting and significant products for 2015.

Apple Watch: The eagerly anticipated Apple Watch finally arrived and, once again, showed Apple’s unrivaled skills in design and integration of software and hardware. While not a must have, it’s a useful tool for helping us do small tasks. It’s significant because it gives us the best wearable yet and has the potential to do much more.

Microsoft Surface 4: Microsoft took a huge chance on their all-in-one tablet and computer platform and endured (deserved) derision for its early models with the Windows 8 operating system. But with Windows 10 and their latest generation surface hardware, they have a compelling product that provides a real alternative to Apple’s two product approach. Microsoft’s vision of carrying an all-in-one device instead of a separate tablet and notebook now looks prescient.

Apple iPad Pro: As a large tablet, the iPad Pro is more of an evolutionary product that brings the first really useful pen(cil) to an Apple product. But it also could be Apple’s early efforts at building a portable notebook using the iOS operating system, a toe in the water to Apple’s all-in-one offering.

HP Sprout: This unusual looking desktop computer is a product from the future available today. It’s a computer, touch tablet display, scanner, camera and projector integrated into one. As a result, it offers huge versatility as a home and business work center that can bring the real and virtual together. Its touch mat sits on the desk and can work as a second screen or be used to interact with the computer like a tablet. Its camera can scan physical objects to combine with virtual ones. It’s the most imaginative product from HP since the all-in-one printer.

Amazon Echo: This clever product puts another device on our desktop or kitchen counter that is as close to magic as anything this year. It’s surprisingly good speech recognition and intelligent programming let you access a wealth of information and entertainment from the internet, as well as performing simple tasks like keeping lists.

Blackberry Priv Phone: Clearly a product more significant to Blackberry than the rest of us, it’s the first smartphone with a very good physical keyboard and access to all of the Android apps. After reading the fascinating book, “Losing the Signal”, about Blackberry’s former tone-deaf management, it’s good to see this effort to gain back relevancy.

LG 55” OLED TV: The promise of affordable OLED HDTVs was realized this year with LG offering a 55-inch model for just $1799. OLEDs offer more contrast and deeper blacks than LCD displays and are what Samsung uses on their Galaxy phones.

Chevy Volt: While we all lust for a Tesla, the new 2016 Chevy Volt is a more affordable ($35K) way to drive on electric power with the advantage of no “range anxiety”, as it shifts to its gas-powered motor when the batteries run out. It provides 50-60 miles on a single 3-hour charge and gets about 40 mpg. The second generation Volt has an all new look with many improvements over its predecessor, the car I’ve been enjoying for the past two years.

Ring: In spite of some difficulties installing it and an occasionally slow response, this replacement for the front doorbell provides an added level of protection few of us have had. It’s a replacement for the peephole in that it lets you see who is at the front door over your phone from wherever you happen to be. It’s emblematic of the many new Internet of Things products we’ve seen this year and just the beginning of what we can expect in 2016.

Drones: 2015 was the year of the drones, with dozens of new models launched this year. Representative of this category is the popular DJI Phantom 3 Standard Quadcopter Drone with 2.7K HD Video Camera at $700. This robust model has a built-in video and still camera that can stream images a half mile away and it flies for 25 minutes on a charge. Just be sure to register it.

Last but not least is the Tesla Powerwall, a 230-lb home battery that charges using electricity when the rates are low at night or from solar panels during the day. It provides power during the times the rates are high, independence from the grid, and an emergency backup.

Published by

Phil Baker

Phil Baker is a product development expert, author, and journalist covering consumer technology. He is the co-author with Neil Young of the forthcoming book, “To Feel the Music,” and the author of “From Concept to Consumer.” He’s a former columnist for the San Diego Transcript, and founder of Techsperts, Inc. You can follow him at www.bakerontech.com.

9 thoughts on “Significant New Products for 2015”

  1. For me the most significant products of 2015 have been:

    1- good midrange mobile devices. 2015 is the first year I’ve felt confident defaulting to recommending midrange devices (Alcatel Idol 3, Moto G, Archos Diamond 50, Asus Zenfone 2 ZE551ML…) unless specific requirements (mostly gaming or photography). Then again, last year’s flagships are usually a big step up for only a little more money (LG G3, GS5…)

    2- Dual-boot tablets (from Chinese players Chuwi, Teclast, Cube et al.) solve the “I want a fun cheap light tablet, but I still need a PC sometime” conundrum. Windows still doesn’t work well for tablets (missing/bad apps), Android can’t run Entreprise apps; Get both in a single device, problem solved – as long as a 4GB Atom x5 is enough for your computing needs, which it usually is.

  2. I think the new MacBook should be there. It points to the future for Laptops. I know that the the techopinion staff is all cock a hoop about 2 in 1s, but I find them about as relevant and about as desirable as the Aquacars of the 1960s were.

    1. Good suggestion. It’s the computer I use most of the time, but I didn’t include it as the list was getting too long. It’s been an excellent carry-everywhere product at just 2 pounds. It’s a great example of a product with all the right compromises.

      1. “all the right compromises”

        This is an important point. Every product can’t be for everyone, and every product should not have every possible option to serve every possible need. Part of Design is understanding that.

          1. It all gets very difficult as we use tech in very different ways. For example what I want in a Laptop is the lightest computer for work on the road that does all the normal stuff (email, browsing, twitter) and runs Scrivener and Keynote well and has great battery life. Contrast that with a friend whose Laptop never leaves his desk and has every peripheral known to man in the last 15 years plugged into it.

          2. That must always be taken in context. I’m pretty sure that it makes lousy compromises for compute intensive tasks, and it should still have more ports and cost $700.

            I look at my Mac Pro, and it made terrible compromises for the sake of aesthetics, and it fails at aesthetics as well. With everything dangling off, it looks like a black octopus, and I have wires all over my desk.

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